Articles about Hamlet

This week at Third Rail, we have more screenings of NT Live’s Hamlet starring Benedict Cumberbatch. If you have not yet gotten a ticket (and assuming there are still tickets available), we highly recommend that you find time to see this production! It’s nearly four hours of Benedict Cumberbatch. In minutes, that’s almost a full season of Sherlock.

We are truly excited this week to also be bringing Hamlet directly to high school students. We have another screening at a local high school where hundreds of teens will be seeing this world class show. We love bringing theatre to young audiences!

Finally this week, if you’ve been reading about our weekly exploits, you know that we almost never rest at Third Rail! We closed The Realistic Joneses last weekend and production meetings are already in progress for our next Main Stage show, Mr. Kolpert. This Sunday, the rough drawings for the set and costumes are due. The design process is well under way and rehearsals are not that far behind! And the beat goes on…

This week, we must say goodbye to The Realistic Joneses. (We promised ourselves we wouldn’t cry…) We will miss this beautiful production of this brilliant script. Audiences have been filling the theatre with laughter during the show, engaging in fascinating conversations with us during the talkbacks, and then writing us about their experience afterward. Here are just a few snippets:

“Great play!”
“The play was brilliant.”
“Fabulous — saw it today and it was a wonderful ride!”
“We enjoyed this play so much we are likely to go again. This play is unlike any other play we’ve seen.”
“..it was terrific.”

We want to share this with as many people as possible before we close on Saturday night! Join us before it’s too late!

This weekend, we also have four more showings of NT Live’s Hamlet starring Benedict Cumberbatch. This show has been selling out so quickly that we just keep adding more screenings, but eventually, we’ll have to stop! So, get your tickets while you can!

Closes November 1

You want a Wild Card?
PETE’s All Well just slips into November as it closes on the 1st. But due to popular demand, they’ve added an extra performance at 7:30 that night! There may just be a hammock or two left if you want to sink into this unique experience.

November 14, 15, 21 & 22

You want an NT Live screening?
We keep adding showings of Hamlet starring Benedict Cumberbatch and you keep filling the theatre! Get tickets while you can to the fastest selling show in National Theatre history and an excellent, singular production of the classic tragedy.

November 15

You want a Bloody Sunday reading?
Well, that’s where we’ll be the morning of Sunday, November 15th. We don’t tell you what play we’re reading beforehand, but we guarantee you’ll hear a play we are considering for production – and you’ll have the opportunity to participate in a conversation with us about it afterward.

You want to see all of these for under $30?
That’s an easy one. Become a Member! There’s no time like now…

We start this week with tech rehearsals for The Realistic Joneses, wherein we integrate nearly all of the show’s technical elements. We’ll follow that with dress rehearsals, which (as the name implies) adds costumes, the final piece of the theatrical puzzle.

Well, not the final piece of the puzzle. That comes with previews when we first bring you, the audience, in to see the show and be a part of the storytelling experience!

After the tech rehearsals, dress rehearsals, and previews – on Friday – we open Will Eno’s marvelous The Realistic Joneses! Have you got your tickets? Don’t wait. Be there with us!

Also, this week, we will be bringing Hamlet to Jesuit High School. As part of an increased effort to connect with young audiences, we are taking NT Live’s Hamlet – starring Benedict Cumberbatch – to the SW Portland high school for a student screening. But worry not, if you want to see this Hamlet – the fastest sell out show in the National Theatre’s history – there are still a FEW tickets left. To buy or not to buy…that is the question!

Academy Award nominee Benedict Cumberbatch (BBC’s Sherlock, The Imitation Game, Frankenstein at the National Theatre) takes on the title role of Shakespeare’s great tragedy. This production has been eagerly awaited both at the National Theatre and here at Third Rail’s NT Live screenings.

We have added as many performances as we can due to the incredibly high level of demand, and only a few tickets are left. Just a few. So get them while you can! Oct 18, Nov 14, 15 and 21 at 2:00 pm and 7:00 pm.

But don’t forget these two other things…

– This presentation will be a screening – Benedict Cumberbatch will not be present. (We know…we’re sad too.)

– These screenings will be the final Third Rail events at the World Trade Center Theater (121 SW Salmon Street). After this, everything Third Rail presents will be in our interim home at Imago Theatre.

There is only one more weekend to see Or,! Yes, just one. You do not want to be among the people who miss the show the Portland Monthly called “a witty, bawdy, frothy Restoration-era spy thriller in the vein of Tom Stoppard”. The reviews for this show have been stellar, though personally you had us at “bawdy, spy thriller.” Get your tickets before this one is gone!

And it’s never too late to become a Member, which would get you access to closing weekend of Or, opening weekend of The Realistic Joneses, NT Live’s Hamlet starring Benedict Cumberbatch, PETE’s All Well, and a Bloody Sunday reading. That’s over $130 worth of programming for only $29.33…and that is just October!

Hamlet. One of the most powerful and influential tragedies in English literature. One of the most popular of Shakespeare’s plays in his life time. The most frequently performed play at the Royal Shakespeare Company since 1879. This time, though, something’s a little different.

One of the most visually and atmospherically stunning productions I’ve ever seen, of anything, ever.Time Out

Academy Award nominee Benedict Cumberbatch (BBC’s Sherlock, The Imitation Game, Frankenstein at the National Theatre) takes on the title role. As a country arms itself for war, a family tears itself apart. Forced to avenge his father’s death but paralyzed by the task ahead, Hamlet rages against the impossibility of his predicament, threatening both his sanity and the security of the state.

Benedict Cumberbatch is a blazing five-star Hamlet Daily Telegraph

This is the fastest selling show in National Theatre history, and the NT Live screening will be shown on over 550 screens around the world, including right here at Third Rail! We’ve already sold out four showings, so we added four more and they are well on their way to selling out, too. So get tickets while you can!

October is shaping up to be an exciting month at Third Rail. Honestly, all of the months are exciting here but we really do believe October is going to be particularly special (and you can tell July we said that!). Why will October be so notable?

Closes October 10

So, we start the month with the last two weekends of this wonderful production. If you have not yet seen it, you are missing a truly excellent play about one of the first female playwrights, written by one of the great modern female playwrights, and starring two of Portland’s greatest female actors. It’s not too late to start your Third Rail October with us by seeing Or,!

Opens October 23

Not two weeks later, we open our next show, The Realistic Joneses by Will Eno – who wrote last year’s hit, Middletown. Directed by Company Member Rebecca Lingafelter and starring Company Members Michael O’Connell, Kerry Ryan, and Darius Pierce, along with guest artist Dana Green, who you may remember from her Drammy-nominated work in Gidion’s Knot. This is an hilarious and deeply human play that will gracefully and humorously grab the baton from Or,.

October 27 – November 1

Following the success of The Bylines: Meant to Be, October also bring us our second Wild Card! PETE: All Well looks to be a unique immersive experience: a sound-installation which will envelop audiences in the pitch black world of an icebound ship. Featuring a soundscape by PETE’s resident sound designer and Third Rail Company Member Mark Valadez, each performance will be limited to 25 audience members who will experience the piece from the comfort of their own hammock. With only 25 hammocks available each show, you’ll want to make sure you reserve your tickets as soon as possible.

October 18th

October also sees the beginning of perhaps our most anticipated NT Live screening ever – Hamlet starring Benedict Cumberbatch. Our Hamlet engagement began with four scheduled screenings which sold out so quickly that we have already added four additional showings. Get tickets while you can, they certainly won’t be around much longer.

October 25

As is true every month, we’ll also have a Bloody Sunday reading of a show we are considering for future production. Bloody Sunday readings are Members Only events and a unique way to peek inside the Third Rail process. In fact, October is going to be one of the best possible months to become a member – for under $30, you would have unlimited access to two Main Stage productions, a Wild Card production, and NT Live’s Hamlet – over $130 in programming! So the only question left is…

Recent News

The mission of Third Rail Repertory Theatre is to provide a dynamic artistic home for theatre audiences in Portland by fostering a professional local company, which, through collaboration and discipline, brings to life exceptional stories that provoke dialogue, encourage empathy, and inspire curiosity.